Coronavirus Lockdown Routine for Kids

Lockdown has been difficult for everybody, but especially for kids. 

Their normal routines have been disrupted and suddenly they cannot see their friends and family, or enjoy the activities they would usually be doing at school or nursery.

I am a key worker, so Issy was still able to attend nursery. But for the first 6 weeks my partner and I made the decision to keep her home to reduce her exposure to the virus. 

We came up with a schedule to mimic her day at nursery with a few adjustments.
Here is the routine we came up with!

I usually get up around 7am to get ready for work, so I would wake her and give her breakfast. I'd make sure she was ready for the day by 8am as usual so she could go on her daily walk with her dad at 8.30. We found that early morning walks were the quietest and easiest time to avoid masses of people. 

Early morning walks

At nursery they would play in the garden from 8.30-9.30am with snack tome to follow. We kept this the same so her morning routine wouldn't be disrupted.

Examples of Issy's snack time menu:

• Fresh Fruit and Yoghurt
• Toast
• cucumber sticks and hummus
• a choice of milk or water

Then Issy would choose and activity to play for an hour. 

Here are a few exampled of some activities we laid out for her:

• Coloring and drawing - we began to teach her how to colour inside the lines and also how to start drawing shapes and people!

• Puzzles - problem solving and patience with fine motor skilled activities are what Issy was focusing on at nursery, so we got a few puzzles that would help her continue to learn at home
• Play-doh and Lego - creativity and working with your hands
• dress up - imagination play
• Free play - learning to play independently

Lunch time at nursery was always quite early - the kids would settle into their chairs at the table at around 11.30. Even though we would usually have lunch an hour later, we decided to follow the same routine as nursery. We tried to vary her options like they do at nursery: sandwiches, hot meals like pasta etc.

Colouring! (at a restaurant pre lockdown)

After lunch is quiet time. At nursery that means nap time, but Issy doesn't nap anymore! 

Instead we have reading time where Issy would choose a few books from her shelf and read them with her dad. 

Then it's independent play where Issy would play whatever she wanted while jack would log onto the computer and begin to set up his work for the evening.

Depending on how Issy plays, we would allow her to watch a movie at 3pm until I came home at 5pm to start the evening and bedtime routine. If she got bored of her activities, she would often start her movie early and afterwards resume playing until 5, or she would carry on playing if she was into her activities until she got bored!

Pretty simple, but it kept her entertained and in a routine that was similar to nursery!
I was at home the first week of the lockdown so was able to make sure the routine was broken in by the time her dad took over!

If you like the routine that Jack and I created, please feel free to download this printable schedule HERE!